Nixa lawmaker’s ideas won’t work

Regarding the Jan. 3 article “Nixa lawmaker wants criminal penalties for drug use in pregnancy,” I was disappointed last week to read that Rep. Jered Taylor, R-Nixa, was introducing legislation to create a tax-free day to purchase guns. Then today I read where he has proposed a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to use drugs while pregnant and I am compelled to speak out and question his logic.

I’ve owned guns, hunted and was once a law enforcement officer. Encouraging more guns to stop crime makes about as much sense as suggesting more rats to stop the plague. A story from our beloved “Western Heritage” pretty well sums up the dangers of guns. In 1871, then Abilene, Kansas, Marshall James Butler Hickok (of previous Springfield Town Square gun-fighting fame) changed the rules to once again allow cowboys to wear guns wherever they pleased. Soon after Hickok was involved in a gunfight, killing one man on purpose and shooting his friend and deputy by accident. Guns aren’t a guarantee of a safer community, and I certainly see no logic attached to offering tax breaks to the purchasers; although it may be a valuable ploy in securing conservative votes next time around. If we must resume the gun toting ways of the Wild West, let’s at least allow gun buyers to participate by contributing to the cost of a free society.

Regarding pregnant women and drugs; back in the late 1970’s my wife and I adopted a beautiful 4-year-old boy who, unbeknownst to us, was born addicted to heroin. That fact was finally brought to our attention years later after dealing with his troubled childhood. His brain had been irreversibly damaged while he was still in the womb; he has unfortunately spent much of his adult life in prisons. His mother went on to birth four more children all of whom were diminished by her drug use.

People who are willing to break laws to buy and use drugs will not be deterred by more laws making the same acts illegal under expanded definitions. Our prisons are already overcrowded with drug users, and their incarceration does little to rehabilitate them. We seek “societal revenge” and then proudly observe that ex-cons are generally repeat offenders and even more violent upon their release.

Punishing results doesn’t deal with causes. Maybe it’s time to wonder what makes drug use and addiction an attractive alternative within the affluence of “Christian America.” If Representative Taylor believes laws can alter addictive behavior why doesn’t he start by passing laws against the deadly cigarette?

I question whether we need “tax-free guns” or that his proposed bill will guarantee a drug-free gestation among those controlled by mind altering addictions. I’ve dealt with these problems on a personal level and will confess to not having the answers but I am certain that Mr. Taylor doesn’t either. By the way, Hickok, the “gun proponent,” was shot to death five years later.

Robert Alder, Nixa

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